The Lottery
by AwesomeMango
Summary: The 2Ps have their annual lottery that they have succeeded in having every year. The summary is terrible, but the story is better! This is based off of Shirley Jackson's own - disclaimers are all in the story so you don't have to worry.


The morning of February 25th was clear and sunny, with the chilliness of a full-winter day; the flowers were buried under a layer of white snow, along with the dark green grass. The people of the village began to gather in the square, between the post office and the bank, around ten o'clock; in some towns there were so many people that they lottery took two days and had to be started on February 23rd, but in this village, where there were only about three hundred people, the lottery took less than two hours, so it could begin at ten o'clock in the morning and still be through in time to allow the villagers to get home for lunch.

The young ones assembled first, of course. School was nearing its end in a few months, and the longing for their summer vacation was so strong. They gathered around quietly for a while, glancing at one another to only be caught a few times, smiling or staring blankly at the other when caught. A few of them were good friends, due to their guardians being friends, and tried to start a conversation which was easier than expected for the few. Peter Kirkland had already stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the other kids soon followed his example, selecting the biggest and roundest stones; a few kids made a great pile of stones in one corner of the square and guarded it against the raids of the other kids.

Soon, the men began to gather, watching the children play and making comments, talking about their childhood and how different it was from the other children's. They stood together, away from the pile of stones in the corner, and smirked rather than laugh at each others' jokes. Alfred F. Jones, having changed his last name so it wouldn't be the same as his caretaker's, ranted on how they wouldn't let him used his treasured nailed bat at the baseball game. He was considered the youngest out of the group, being nineteen. His older brother, Matthew Williams, also having changed his last name for the same reason, scoffed and began to talk about something involving hockey - a topic that he had managed to bring up in almost every conversation.

The women came in shortly after the men did, glancing at each other and smiled a smile that looked more of a smirk once the other caught their gaze. They weren't like most women who smiled and greeted at each other - absolutely not. They didn't gossip or talk about the latest fashions or celebrities, rather talk about taxes and combat and all that. Though, there were a few exceptions. Once the women seemed to have arrived, the men began to call their little brothers or sisters who reluctantly came, having to be called four or five times. Lad, Peter's adoptive brother, ducked under his foster father's grasping hands and ran, bursting out into fits of giggles. His foster mother spoke up sharply, and Lad came quickly, taking his place between his father and brother.

The lottery was conducted- as were the cook-offs, teen club, cooking club, the Halloween program- by Arthur Kirkland, who had the time and energy to devote to civic activities. He was a jovial man who was quite odd, especially from his cotton-candy pink hair and baby blue eyes, along with his sense of fashion. He ran the only bakery in town and people felt sorry for him because he had no children nor wife and his family hated him to the core, even his adoptive brother or sisters that had left him in the harshest ways. When he arrived in the square, carrying the black wooden box, there was a murmur of conversation among the villagers. He waved and called, "Little late today, poppets." The postmaster, Francis Bonnefoy, followed him, carrying a three-legged stool that was placed in the center of the square. Arthur set the black box down on it, the villagers keeping their distance and leaving a space between themselves and the stool. When Arthur said, "Some help would be appreciated~!" there was a hesitation before two men, Vlad and Sindre, came forward to hold the box steady on the stool while Arthur stirred up the papers inside it.

The original paraphernalia for the lottery had been lost long ago, and the black box now resting on the stool had been put into use even before Yao Wang, the oldest man in town (who looked younger than he is), was born. Arthur spoke frequently to the villagers about making a new box, but no one liked to upset even as much tradition as was represented by the black box. There was a story that the present box had been made with some pieces of the box that had preceded it, the one that had been constructed when their ancestors settled down to make a village here. Every year, after the lottery, Arthur began talking again about a new box, but every year the subject was allowed to fad off without anything being done. The black box grew shabbier each year; by now it was no longer completely black, but splintered badly along one side to show the original wood color, and in some places faded or stained.

Vlad and Sindre held the black box securely on the stool until Arthur had stirred the papers thoroughly with his hand. Because so much of the ritual had been forgotten or discarded, Arthur had been successful in having slips of paper substituted for the chips of wood that had been used for generations. _Chips of wood_, Arthur had argued, _had been all very well when the village was all tiny, but now that the population was more than three hundred, _and_ likely to keep on growing, it's necessary to use something that would fit more easily into the box_. The night before the lottery, Arthur and Francis made up the slips of paper and put them in the box, and it was then taken to the safety of Arthur's bakery, locked up until he was ready to take it to the square the next morning. The rest of the year, the box was put away, sometimes one place, sometimes another; it had spent one year in Francis' drug store and another year underfoot in the post office; and sometimes it was set on a shelf in the Carriedo grocery, left there until they needed to use it again.

There was a great deal of fussing to be done before Arthur declared the lottery open. There were the lists to make up - of heads of families, heads of households in each family, members of each household in each family. There was the proper swearing-in of Arthur by the postmaster, as the official of the lottery; at one time, some people remembered, there had been a recital of some sort, performed by the official of the lottery, a perfunctory, tuneless chant that had been rattled of duly each year; some people believed that the official of the lottery used to stand just so when he said or sang it, others believed that he was supposed to walk among the people, but years and years ago this part of the ritual had been allowed to lapse. There had been, also, a ritual salute, which the official of the lottery had to use in addressing each person who came up to draw from the box, but this also had changed with time, until now it was felt necessary only for the official to speak to each person approaching. Arthur was very good at all this; in his clean white shirt and sweater vest, along with his blue bow-tie and beige trousers. He seemed very proper and important as he talked interminably to Francis and Vlad and Sindre.

Just as Arthur finally left off talking and turned to the assembled villagers, Flavio came hurriedly along the path to the square, his pastel scarf wrapped around his tanned neck - something he wore on special events, and slide into place in the back of the crowd. "Forgot what day it was," he said to Alfred, who stood next to him, and the latter seemed to scoff. "Thought that Luci was out back cuttin' wood," Flavio went on, "And then I looked out the window and everyone seemed to have disappeared. Suddenly, I remembered it was the twenty fifth and came-a-running."

He straightened out his shirt, and Alfred said with his usually smug grin, "Welp, you're in time, I guess. They're still talkin' 'way up there."

Flavio craned his neck to see through the crowd and spotted his two brothers standing near the front. He firmly gripped onto Alfred's shoulder as a farwell and began to make his way through the crowd. The people made way for the Italian; two or three people said in voices just loud enough to be heard across the crowd, "Here comes ol' Flavio, fashionably late as always!" and "Busy knittin' a sweater, scarf boy?".

Flavio reached his brother, and Arthur, who had been waiting, said cheerfully, "Thought we were going to have to go on without you, Flavio!"

Flavio said, grinning, "Wouldn't have me leave the pile of dirty dishes in the sink, now, would you, Artie? Everyone knows m'brothers aren't as much as a clean freak as me, si?"

Soft laughter ran through the crowd as the people stirred back into position after Flavio's arrival.

"Well, now," Arthur said soberly, "Guess we better get started, get this over with, so we can go back to working here. Anybody not here?"

Arthur consulted his list. "Ivan Braginsky," he said. "That's right! He broke his leg, hasn't he? Who's drawing for him?"

"Me," a tall woman with blonde hair cut into a bobcat style. "

"A woman draws," Arthur said, "Don't you have another brother to to do it for you, Katyusha?" Although Arthur and everyone else in the village knew the answer perfectly well, it was the business of the official of the lottery to ask suck questions formally. Arthur waited with an expression of polite interest while Katyusha answered.

"Don't got no other brothers," she spat, "Only a sister. A little one."

"Right," Arthur said. He made a note on the list he was holding, then asked, "Elizabeta drawing this year?"

An oddly tall girl in the crowd raised her slender hand. "Here," she said. "I'm drawing for myself."

She blinked her eyes nervously and ducked her head as several voices in the crowd whispered things like, "Heard her and Roderich got a divorce. Poor girl got no other family members to draw for her." and "Katyusha and her circumstances are one thing, Elizabeta and hers are another."

"Well," Arthur said, "Suppose that's everyone. Has Yao made it?"

"Here," a voice said in the crowd, Arthur simply nodding.

A sudden hush fell on the crowd as Arthur cleared his throat and looked down at the list. "All ready," he called. "Now, I'll read the names- heads of families first, if you have one- and the men come up and take a paper out of the box. Keep the paper folded in your hand without looking at it until everyone had a turn. Everything clear now, hm?"

The people had done it so many times that they only half listened to the directions; most of them were quiet, wetting their lips, not looking around. Then, Arthur raised one hand high and said, "Adnan." A man disengaged himself from the crowd and came forward, smiling shyly at Arthur. "Hello, Sadik," Arthur said and the latter returned the greeting.

"Hi, Arthur."

They grinned at one another humorlessly and nervously. Then Sadik rached into the black box and took out a folded paper. He held it firmly by one corner as he turned and went hastily back to his place in the crowd, where he stood a little apart from everyone, not looking down at his hand.

"Bonnefoy," Arthur said, "Braginsky... Bieldschmidt..."

"Seems like there's no time at all between the lotteries any more," Berwald said to Sindre in the back row. "Seems like we got through with the last one only last week."

"Time sure goes fast," Sindre chuckled almost nervously.

"Carriedo... Chao... Edelstein..."

"Is it strange that Eliza is after her ex-husband," Lad asked his adopted brother.

"I dunno," Peter shrugged, "Natural for men to be ahead of woman, I guess."

"Hedervary," Arthur called, and Elizabeta went steadily to the box while one of the women commented things like, "Go on, Eliza." and, "There she goes."

In a few moments, all through the crowd, there were men (with a few selected women) holding the small folded papers in their hand, turning them over and over nervously. Katyusha and Natalia both stood together, Katyusha holding the slip of paper with an iron grip.

"Hassan... Honda." Kiku went through the crowd, ignoring the people's comments about him finally making it.

"Jones."

"Get up there, Alfie," Matthew smirked at his half-brother who glared at him, a few people laughing.

"Karpusi... Kirkland," Arthur stepped forward after Heracles drew a slip, drawing one for himself.

"Ye know," Sindre said to Yao Wang, who stood next to him, "Over at the north village, they're talking of giving up the lottery."

Yao snorted at the statement. "Pack of crazy fools, aru," he said. "Listening to the young folks, nothing's good enough for them, aru. Next thing you know, they'll be wanting to go back to living in caves, nobody work any more, live that way for a while, aru. Used to be a saying about 'Lottery in February, warmth coming soon'. First thing you know, we'd all be caught in a frozen tundra. There's always been a lottery." He added petulantly, "Bad enough to see young Arthur Kirkland up there joking with everybody."

"Some places have already quit lotteries," Sindre said.

"Nothing but trouble in that," Yao said stoutly. "Pack of young fools."

"Køhler..." The Danish man stepped forward and pull out a slip. "Laurinaitis... Łukasiewicz..."

"I wish they'd hurry," Natalia worriedly said to her sister, "I wish they'd hurry."

"They're almost through," Katyusha said in an attempt to comfort her little sister, knowing that she needed to act like a big sister in such times like these. "Just get ready to run and tell brother."

"Oxenstierna." Lad and Peter watched as their foster father went forward, drawing out a slip of paper. "Vargas... Wang."

"Seventy-seventh year I've been in this lottery, aru," Yao said as he went through the crowd, glaring at all the people who stared at him. "Seventy-seventh time."

"Williams... Zwingli."

After that, there was a long pause, a breathless pause, until Arthur, holding his slip of paper in the air, said, "Alright, everyone." For a minute, no one moved, and then all the slips of paper were opened. At the very moment the slips were opened, everyone began to fuss about, speaking all at once.

"Who is it?"

"Who's got it?"

"Is it the Braginskys?"

"Is it the Oxenstiernas?"

Then someone shouted it aloud, "Bieldschmidt! It's Gilbert! Gilbert Bieldschmidt's got it!"

"Go tell brother," Katyusha said to her sister who nodded, following her sibling's orders.

People began to look around to see the Bieldschmidts, the winners. Gilbert Bieldschmidt was standing there quietly, staring down in pure shock at the paper in his hand.

Suddenly, Ludwig Bieldschmidt shouted at Arthur, "You didn't give him enough time to take any paper he wanted! I saw you, it wasn't fair!"

"Be a good sport, Ludwig," Flavio said aloud. "All of us took the same chance!"

"Well, everyone," Arthur said, "That was done pretty fast, and now we have to be hurrying a tad bit more to get done in time." He consulted his next list. "Gilbert," he said, "You draw for the Bieldschmidt family. You have any other households in the Bieldschmidts?"

"No one," Gilbert replied almost disappointingly, "No one 'cept Ludwing, that is."

"Alright, then," Arthur said. "Francis, you got their tickets back?" Francis nodded and held up the slips of paper. "Put them in the box, then," Arthur directed. "Take Gilbert's and put it in."

"I think we need to start over," Ludwig said as quietly as he could. "I tell you, it wasn't fair. You didn't give him time enough to choose. Everybody saw that."

Francis had selected two slips of paper and dumped all the other papers out the box where the breeze caught them, lifting them off. He placed the two slips into the now empty box after.

"Listen, everybody," Ludwig said to the people around him, sounding almost desperate.

"Ready, Gilbert?" Arthur asked, and Gilbert, with one quick glance to his brother, nodded. "Remember," Arthur continued, "take the slips and keep them folded until each person has taken one." Arthur straightened out his posture and called out, "Ludwig."

The Germanic man hesitated for a minute, looking around defiantly, scrunching his face in displeasure, and went up to the box. He snatched a paper out and held it tightly, glaring at the Brit who simply smiled in response.

"Gilbert," Arthur said, and Gilbert reached into the box, feeling around it before bringing his hand out with the last slip of paper.

The crowd was quiet, though there was a whisper that reached the edges of the crowd, "I hope it's not Ludwig." No one knew who it was nor did they plan to.

"It's not the way it used to be, aru," Yao said loud enough for everyone in a clear voice, "People aren't the way they used to be, aru."

"Alright," Arthur said. "Open the papers."

The two brothers opened their own slip of paper and the crowd was silent, anticipating on who was the winner out of the two. Ludwig stared down at his slip before holding it up, expression obviously pleased. The slip was blank.

"It's Gilbert," Arthur said, his voice hushed. "Show us his paper, Luddy."

Ludwig went over to his brother and took the paper out of his hand easily, the latter's grip quite weak from shock. It had a black spot on it, the black spot Arthur had made the night before with the heavy pencil in his bakery. Ludwig held it up, and there was a stir in the crowd.

"Alright, loves," Arthur said. "Let's finish this quickly."

Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, the still remembered to use stones. The pile of stones the kids had made earlier was ready; there were stones on the ground with the blowing scraps of paper that had come out of the box. Alfred had selected a stone so large that he had to pick it up with both hands and turned to Matthew. "Come on," he bickered. "Hurry up!"

Matthew had somewhat large stones in both his gloved hands and jogged next to his brother. "Honestly, slow down will you?! I swear, I'm not sharing any of my stones with you this year, Al!"

The children had stones already, Peter, being one of them, lent his adopted brother some reluctantly. Luciano lent Ludwig a few pebbles, giving him a small look of pity that only lasted a brief moment, and then dragged him along the crowd.

Gilbert Bieldschmidt was in the center of a cleared space by now, and he held his hands out desperately as the villagers closed in on him like a predator would to prey. He looked around frantically with his crimson red eyes, trying to find an opening - somewhere to run off. But there was nothing. They've got him surrounded. "I-It isn't fair," he said aloud. A stone hit him on the side of his head, drawing out blood that stained his snow-white hair.

Yao was in the front of the crowd, saying, "Come on, come on, everyone!"

Everyone stepped closer and closer to the Prussian, slowly - steadily - as if they were zombies. "IT ISN'T _FAIR_, IT ISN'T _RIGHT,_" Gilbert screamed and screeched as everyone began to throw stones at him. "IT ISN'T, I TELL YOU! IT ISN'T!" He was hit in many places, his sensitive and slightly scarred skin tearing and ripping, red fluids flowing out from the open wounds. His back hit the wall and he slid down, curling into a protective ball as the villagers, his friends, his _brother_ threw stones at him.

* * *

A/N: Were you guys expecting Prussia to die? xD Or did you guys expect Flavio to? Maybe Ludwig? Maybe you didn't know that someone was going to die?

Yeah, my class was doing this story and I thought, "Hey, wouldn't the 2ps be perfect for this?" I mean like, they're paranoid and odd like the villagers in this story! So, in the long time that I've had the idea in my head, I finally made and finished it~ :D I thought that I should make it something a bit different from the original story. XD

Sorry if the 2Ps are out-of-character, but that's how I like, imagine them to be .-.

DISCLAIMER: THE ORIGINAL STORY AND PLOT WAS MADE BY SHIRLEY JACKSON (Link: .edu/individualandthesociety/files/2010/09/jackson _ ); I HAVE ONLY EDITED IT SLIGHTLY; HETALIA IS OWNED MY HIMARUYA HIDEKAZ.

**_INFO THAT YOU MIGHT NEED TO KNOW:_**

**_- I based 2p!Norway (Sindre) on this FB PAGE: pages/Sindre-Engvik-2P-Norway-APH/139774632866300 _**

**_- I USED THIS WEBSITE FOR THE LAST NAMES: wiki/List_of_Hetalia:_Axis_Powers_characters_**

**_-Vlad is 2p!Romania, Lad is 2p!Ladonia, Katyusha is 2p!Ukraine, Natalia is 2p!Belarus._**

**_-February 25th was when Prussia dissolved (Hah, should have known that, right?)_**

**_-I've posted this on a Facebook page, so you might have seen it, but it's on deletion so yeah. ^^ Thought of posting it here. _**

**_-Some 2p!Countries were not called, due to the lottery's rules. I'm a bit confused on how to do it, but yeah._**


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